The Bed

Okay ... this really isn't funny, but I have to tell someone about this.

Two months ago when we were deciding what to do about Meg's bed when we moved her out of the boys room ... we went bed shopping for her.  This was before we decided to use the antique bed that is a permanent fixture upstairs.

Anyway,  Von and I went to a bed store and we were looking at twin beds ... then moved on up to Queen size so she could grow into it and, well ... you know the story.  The salesman was really good.

We, meaning I ... spotted  the most awesome luxious bed I've ever seen.  The mattress was beautiful.  King size.  Plush.  Soft.  Memory foam.  Expensive.  No flip.  Exquisite.  Tall.  Almost need a ladder, and did I say very expensive.  It was way out of our budget ... plus we weren't shopping for us a bed, because we  do not need a bed, and we were on a mission for the princess.

We have a very nice comfortable Queen size pillow top that is to die for when you're really really tired.  Plus, our bed has sentimental value.  My water broke in that bed ... not only once, but twice in the night before our triplets were born.  Thus, we now have a very big and beautiful starburst stain right in the middle.  How could we possibly give that up?!

So I talked Von into laying on it ... and Von never makes a comotion in public, let alone would he EVER lay down on a bed in a busy store.  But he did.  Boots and all.  Then I laid on it.  Right beside him, and we giggled and he laughed, then he caught himself and got up before anyone saw us.

I have to admit .... I am the most compulsive person I know.  Von, on the other hand, is the most conservative person I've ever met ... and he never makes rash insane decisions, especially one that would involve a bed that is completely out of our league, especially when we don't need one.

So he wrote the check.  Only after I had him convinced that we would have so much more room.  He would never have to hang onto the edge again.  The main selling point to him was, if you can't keep them out ... make room for them.  Them, being the kids.  You see ... every single night they migrate to our bed.  We are totally unaware of it until all five of us are sweating like monkeys in a tin can from body heat and lack of room.  They've learned to get in the middle, after falling out several times, and before we gave in and put kids rails on our bed.  We really did.  .... They kick us and each other ... then they wake up fighting and we have to start all over.

So let's fast forward to now.  Last week, two months later, I had the bed delivered.  Keep in mind that I live in an old farmhouse with straight up narrow stairs.  Five years ago we had to have the bed hoisted up through a window because the queen box springs would not go up the stairs.  So, what made us think that a King deep box memory foam mattress would.  What possessed my rational husband to even remotely think that we could do this?

The bed people store sent two delivery men.  One being about 100 pounds soaking wet and the other being about 400 pounds that snorted when he breathed and whistled for lack of oxygen.  The skinny one gulped and the fat ones eyes bulged and turned red when they saw the narrow stairway.  But I had a plan.

"Hey Delivery Man ...  can you just bend that mattress a bit like a ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ and force it up those stairs ... and leave the plastic on it please, so it doesn't get dirty?"

They weren't thinking straight.  The fat man ended up on top and the little skinny guy was on bottom.  It is not supposed to work that way ... and they couldn't trade places.  The only way down for the fat man was to get the mattress to the top because he couldn't jump over it ... and he couldn't go around it.  So he tugged and pulled and tried to bend it, and he heaved and ho'ed and sweat was pouring off of him ... and I got worried.  The little skinny guy at the bottom of the stairs was pushing with all his might, and we weren't going anywhere, so I called Von to come home to try to figure out how to get the mattress unstuck from the stairwell.

Just as Von walked in and looked up at me looking over the wall .... the mattress gave, and the fat man fell back against the wall and gasped for air.  Yes, I'm a nurse ... but no way was I going to give that guy mouth to mouth if he needed it.  No way.

Now we have a new King sized bed in our room ... and it's total glory.  I'm on the hunt for the perfect comforter now ... and would you believe that the kids suddenly stopped getting in our bed at night. 

How'd we get our Queen bed down you ask ... we didn't.  We ended up giving it to Meg and did away with the antique bed in her room.  She sunk in the middle of the feather mattresses and they swallowed her up and she didn't like it.  So now, it's standing up again in the corner of her room.

As soon as I find that perfect comforter, I'll take some pictures to show you!

Treasures of the Heart

This morning my spouse got a wild hair up his butt and decided to work on cleaning up the farm ... such as moving my beloved window boxes down to a burn pile, along with anything else that screamed the word JUNK to him. 

When I wildly ran out the door flailing my arms and yelling, "No! No!  Not my window boxes .... ", he just kept on driving!  Of course when I ran after him in an attempt to save my treasures, it dawned on me that I was barefooted and was running on gravel.  Not just just any gravel ... but rained on gravel that was mixed with barn mud.  Defeated, I hobbled back to the house and began wipe the cow poop from between my toes.

I loved those window boxes.  Granted, I only planted flowers in them the first year I put them up, about five years ago.  I had found the pattern for them on page forty-four, in a magazine that Von's Dad had given me a few years before .... and they looked so beautiful in the pictures, that I just had to have them.  I had them made and painted them with love ... and hired the neighbor man to put them up and I planted the most beautiful Petunia's in them. 

Of course, I didn't have a green thumb, and futhermore, I had even less time to water and prune and take care of flowers.  My excuse was that I had triplet babies, but the next year I would.  It was my dream ... I had visioned it while thumbing through that old magazine.

My window boxes were taken down a couple of months ago when we recontructed our kitchen, after I had made the executive decision to take out a wall of windows.  They were laid to rest on the ground next to our house by the Contractor .... and that's where they've been ever since.


The two sets of double windows that were directly above my beautiful window boxes are now gone ... and TODAY Von decided to tell me that he hadn't wanted those windows removed.  Well ... now's a fine time to tell me Lucille. 
 
I had to peek out the window to see want he was doing with my boxes ... and I watched him gently lay each one down, side by side on the ground.  He knows that later this evening I'll walk down the path to the old barn, and I'll dump the old dirt out, and carry my boxes back to where I have my other treasures that I've come up with since I've moved to this farm.
 
He knows that I'm a dreamer ... and I love magazines and pictures and have visions.  He knows that keeps me happy and keeps me here, and he knows that I'll always be that way ... and he knows that forty years from now, my window boxes will still be in that old barn along with all my other treasures of the Heart.

102.8 = Hot

Hot?  Very.  But not Hot as in Haaught, Cool, Chic or RockStar Hot.  Just Hot as in ... sick.  Well, she is a RockStar most of the time .. but not today she says!

Today she was running a 102.8 temp and was a bit lethargic, and being Friday and right before a weekend, and no doctor availability except the ER or a MEC, we opted to take her in.

My girl has a very bad severe case of Strep and a full body Scarlet Fever Rash ... even on her toes.  She's as speckled as a dalmation pup with a sandpaper like rash all over.  She's not eating ... not drinking and not peeing much, and just not as peppy as normal.

But when the Doctor stepped out, we pulled out my little "point and shoot" camera that I always have in my purse and she pepped it up, boogied and posed a bit!

You know what they say ....  "Once a RockStar ... always a ROCKSTAR!"

Please send a few prayers her way everyone ... she's pretty under the weather tonight!

Panic on the Farm

Being that I can't keep a secret for the life of me and I love to talk ... I have to tattle on myself about today's happenings.

Late this morning I was putting dishes away in the kitchen and I kept hearing this weird cracking noise.  It was consistent and baffling and loud enough that I could track it down.  It came from within my pantry ... and from within the circuit breaker box.

Instant panic rose up in me, and all I could think about was saving my children.  Every thing and every scenario of my emergency plan played out in my head as I called Von on the phone and told him the circuit breaker box was cracking and sizzling.  I saw in my head that my house could explode or burn down before I could get my kids out ... the fear almost paralyzed me, but I knew their innocent lives were in my hands and I could keep myself together.

He was vaccinating cows at one of the barns down the road, and I was alone in the house with three four year old's.  They weren't dressed, and didn't have shoes on and it was snowy and icy outside and I knew I could not carry all three of them out of the house by myself.

I could hear him becoming short of breath as he was running to his truck to come home.  He'd told me to stay by the box and watch what happened.  No, I couldn't smell heat, and no, I didn't see fire ... and yes, it was still making that noise.  In the end, I couldn't just stand by that box.


The panic in my voice was evident to these little kids as I ordered them to get their boots on, and in between running to get their coats, and watching the breaker box ... they did what I told them to do.  They stood in a line at the back door, flattened against the wall and waited for the emergency that I was telling them was happening.  They didn't cry ... they just stood there with big eyes and were ready to run.

Within a couple of minutes of my phone call, Von came home.  As he listened to the box, I could the see the fear in his eyes ... when suddenly he said to me, "listen and tell me if it stops" ... then he went outside.  Within seconds, the noise stopped ... then started again.

As he came back through the door, all the fear that I had previously seen was gone from his face.

Then he said to me ....  "that noise is coming from the icicles that are melting off the gutter".

Then I said, "I knew that! I was just practicing my emergency evacuation plan .... and you passed!"



Well .... I really didn't say that ... but I did give a sick little laugh before I almost passed out  .... and told the kids that the coast was clear!